Followers

Saturday, January 14, 2012

The Pentagon has quietly shifted combat troops and warships to the Middle East after the top American commander in the region warned that he needed additional forces to deal with Iran and other potential threats, U.S. officials said.

Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who heads U.S. Central Command, won White House approval for the deployments late last year after talks with the government in Baghdad broke down over keeping U.S. troops in Iraq, but the extent of the Pentagon moves is only now becoming clear.

Officials said the deployments are not meant to suggest a buildup to war, but rather are intended as a quick-reaction and contingency force in case a military crisis erupts in the standoff with Tehran over its suspected nuclear weapons program.

The Pentagon has stationed nearly 15,000 troops in Kuwait, adding to a small contingent already there. The new units include two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit - a substantial increase in combat power after nearly a decade in which Kuwait chiefly served as a staging area for supplies and personnel heading to Iraq.

The Pentagon also has decided to keep two aircraft carriers and their strike groups in the region.

Earlier this week, the American carrier Carl Vinson joined the carrier Stennis in the Arabian Sea, giving commanders major naval and air assets in case Iran carries out its recent threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint in the Persian Gulf, where one-fifth of the world's oil shipments passes.

Fatally Flawed: The Pursuit of Justice in a Suspicious Election

Voices of Opposition

Basic Statistics for U.S. Imperialism

New Additions

The World Reacts...

Click Picture

See Hillary Clinton Make Fun of Gaddafi's Murder

Here is Israel's Crap Treatment of an American Jew

People participate in movements when that particular movement

(1) meets their concrete and tangible needs,(2) offers individuals real experiences in the movement's outcome(3) provides a sense of community,(4) makes available ongoing education and skills training and(5) shows direct and effective ways for people to take further action.

A loose interpretation of a message sent on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 by the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy

Subscribe To

Free Trade's Race to the Bottom

A worker walks out of a factory building outfitted with nets, installed to prevent workers from jumping to their deaths, at a Foxconn factory, in Langfang, Hebei Province August 3, 2010. There have been nearly a dozen suicides at Foxconn plants around China this year alone, prompting calls for investigations into poor working conditions at the plants that make parts for customers such as Apple, HP and Dell. (REUTERS/Jason Lee) #

Portland 9/11 Truth Meetup Group and the Smell of Bacon

You can't have peacefor the sake of peace.Peace is a consequenceof an equitable arrangement.